The Adventures sponsored by ASL Airlines have been making waves across Europe with visits to Maltese News, Ulster Aviation Society, Mourne Flying Club Fly-In BBQ, de Havilland Fly-In, Malta International Airshow, and the Flying Bulls at the famous Hanger 7.
Since the evening of the ‘Women in Aviation’ fundraiser on 31st August with raised €2465 Capt Paddy & Lucky have been on an adventure of a lifetime. They visited the Mourne Flying Club Fly-In BBQ with Brendan Digney and Mark Chambers where the pair enjoyed meeting all the pilots from across Ireland including some old friends that they had previously flown with.
Paddy and Lucky received a very special invite to visit the collection of the Ulster Aviation Society, at Maze Long Kesh outside Lisburn. Befitting such a special invite, our high-flying duo dropped in via helicopter, R-44 G-DKNY. They were met on landing by their host Leonard Craig, who was delighted to invite the bears in and show them around the collection.
Mark O’Neill, Chief Flying Instructor at National Flight Center took the bears on DH.104 (G-OPLC) to the de Havilland Fly-in hosted by the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden airfield. The organisers were delighted to welcome them, and they flew in the D.H.51, D.H Dragon Rapide, and the Royal Chipmunk flown by King Charles III. On their return to Dublin Weston, they also flew on a Tecnam P-Mentor and Beechcraft Model18.
They were handed over to Andy Garland who took them to the Malta International Airshow where its safe to say Capt Pand & Lucky made a big impression on pilots, crews, and spotters alike. The interest in Ireland’s VIP Aviator Bears reached fever pitch when they made the news bulletin on One News Malta interviewed by Kimberley with Andy Garland.
As news spread of their notoriety, Andy introduced our bears to Stefan Doblhammer & Philipp Haidbauer, two Alpha Jet pilots of The Flying Bulls. They took a keen interest in flying them at the Sunday display and indeed both bears were strapped into the aircraft to take part. Unfortunately, the weather closed in, and the flight was unable to take place. Not to be beaten Stefan & Philipp asked if they could fly them to Salzburg, Austria to the Flying Bulls HQ. Now that was a unique offer we could not refuse and we were over the moon to accept.
They arrived on Monday (25th Sept) after an incredible formation flight with a B25J Mitchell that included a refueling stop-off in Italy and some incredible air-to-air footage. As guests at the famous ‘Hangerr 7’ Capt Paddy & Lucky have already flown in the Bell 47T & DC-6B. We look forward to seeing what other unique aircraft the team has instore our intrepid bears.
